Chapter 2, The Invention of Tradition, The Highland Tradition of Scotland Summary and Analysis

Scotsmen celebrate their national identity with common symbols, such as the kilt and the bagpipe. They ascribe these elements to antiquity but they are modern, developing after union with England as a form of protest. Some of these items and practices existed in the past in primitive form but at the time Scotsmen saw them as barbaric and representing backward Highlanders.

The notion of a distinct Highland culture is a myth that did not exist prior to the seventeenth century. At that time, the Scottish people were merely an overflow of Ireland. Two Celtic societies in the West Highlands and Ireland merged into each other centuries ago. The culture of the Highlands was a crude imitation of Irish culture. The eighteenth and early...